


things that feel like they can last

by withyourshield (notnowcommander)



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:56:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18539029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notnowcommander/pseuds/withyourshield





	things that feel like they can last

Kassandra always felt that life as a mercenary and a normal life - with a house, family, children, maybe a small shop in an  _ agora -  _ were mutually exclusive. Nearly ten years ago when she left Kephallonia, she swore she’d never miss the small, simple world she’d called home for most of her life. In many ways, she still doesn’t. There’s nothing there to pull her back, no family left behind there, no Phoibe to look after. Perhaps a short visit to Markos, though she presumes by now his grapes have grown and his vineyard has taken off, and she thinks he’d enjoy a venture off of the island for probably the first time in his life. No, there’s no home on Kephallonia, but she thinks to stay in one place for a time might be nice once all of this is over.

She thinks of a home, something small and quaint, with a great view, perhaps away from many other houses, and a place to rest her head every night without question. A place to put all of her things that isn’t a satchel strapped to her back. She wonders what it will feel like to return to Sparta, with her mother, and hopefully her brother tagging along behind. She wonders what that night of sleep will feel like. She imagines it’ll feel like ten years of catching up on rest. 

She’s been thinking of home since Athens, since the messenger arrived to tell her that Brasidas was not only alive, but preparing for another battle. The news had filled her with a zeal and optimism she hadn’t felt in years, perhaps not since finding her mother. For weeks, following Pylos, she’d had nightmares of the battle, reimagining each moment in her head, wondering what she could have done to change what had happened. She could have told him of Deimos, of the kind of power he wielded, the lack of hesitation to destroy anything in his path. She wishes she had told Brasidas sooner what kind of monster the Cult had made her brother. 

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the perfect deflect as Deimos shoved his spear out of the way, a quick slash at the throat, and to the leg, and how she  _ stood there,  _ unable to do anything, unsure of what there even was to do. Her father had taught her to never hesitate, to move, to be two steps ahead of her enemy at all times, but her eyes couldn’t move from him, clutching a spurting wound on his neck, struggling to pull himself up from the ground the way Spartans are supposed to, but failing and accepting a place on the ground among the dead. It was then that she realized “ally” was far too simple a term for her feelings. 

Life as a  _ misthios  _ left little room for regret. There were contracts she may have second guessed, choices she may have questioned, but to survive, moving forward was the only way to keep the ghosts of her past from catching up with her. She’d resigned herself to the fact that however she felt for Brasidas, he’d never know now. It was a secret she’d have to keep inside her for the rest of her life, to give those feelings to someone else, in hopes that it would sate the ache in her heart in time. 

Amphipolis reminds her of Kephallonia in some ways. It’s plain, in her opinion. It’s full of trees and beaches, with mountains full of hungry bears and unruly boars, and feels somehow distant from the other places she’s been. She’s watched many sunsets in her travels, but she’s finding this one to be one of the most beautiful, and hopeful in a long time. 

“Almost like Arkadia,” Brasidas says, leaning forward to adjust the fire in front of them. He grips the bandages around his leg, and winces in pain as he does so. Kassandra wonders if she should reach out to stop him, though the action is small. She’s failed to protect him before, and each missed opportunity now feels like an additional pang to the heart. But he plans to fight, he plans to be exactly who he was. She knows someone as legendary as he is in battle is not about to let her hold him back from simple movement.

“The view here is better.”

“It depends,” he says, a sense of playful defensiveness in his voice. 

“In Arkadia, we camped on a hill, next to a cave with bears, and we looked at wheat and rocks. I will take a nice view of the sea any day.”

He purses his lips and doesn’t respond. 

“Growing up on Kephallonia, the sea was everywhere. From nearly anywhere you could see it, and the faint shadows of other islands I wouldn’t dare to go. No  _ drachmae _ , no knowledge or idea of which direction to go. I always saw it as my escape, as a chance to determine what came next.”

“And now?”

“I see it the same, but as a reminder of all that is left out there to do and see. All there is to explore when this is all over.”

He gives an easy smile and shrugs. When she’d asked him to come with her to the beach at sundown, he’d agreed with a tender eagerness. There was work to do before launching an assault against Kleon’s forces, but he promised he would be here moments before sundown, and wouldn’t miss a minute of their time. Kassandra had found them a spot on the beach, away from view, and she’d stripped off her armor down to her  _ chiton  _ and tossed it aside into a pile with her sandals. 

“You know,” she begins, “it’s strange to see you out of armor. I was beginning to think it was just part of your skin.”

“As if I would turn to dust if I tried to take it off?”

“Maybe,” she teases.

“Well, in that case, I’m surprised to see you let go of that spear for more than a minute. You must sleep with it under your head at night.”

“I do.”

Brasidas hesitates to respond, like perhaps he’d been anticipating that answer, but still meant it as a joke. “I see.”

Kassandra remembers the way Nikolaos would tease her as a child during their training, chiding that she could send any Spartan man running with her strength and skill. And of course her stubbornness. In many ways, he hadn’t been wrong. Intimidated by her wrath and ferocity, she could manage to make even the strongest leaders quiver in their buskins.

But Brasidas has never looked at her that way. She’s always felt as if they were equals, in skill, in strategy, and so in sync in ways she had never felt with another person by her side. Sure, she was a woman, and an outcast, and a mercenary hungry for drachmae, but they’d always felt as partners. And he had always looked at her with an admiration and trust that never felt threatening or overbearing. If only she knew how to tell him she looked at him in the same way. 

_ Compatibility _ , she thinks.  _ Companionship. _

It feels good. 

Perhaps the easiest way to say it is to do exactly that… say it.

A knot grows in her stomach, and it’s not often she’s nervous. Not over these sorts of things. 

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she starts. 

He listens intently, and doesn’t rush to interrupt or finish her sentence. She wants to move closer to him, but it feels too preemptive, too soon. She doesn’t know if he feels the same way, but there’s something in the way he looks at her that makes her believe he has to. It’s been this way since Sparta. He’s never had much to gain from helping her, yet, he’s always been here. He helped them earn their home back, to unmask a cultist, to help her face Deimos -- to almost die facing Deimos. Of course, there is friendship, but there can always be more. 

“After Pylos, I thought I would never see you again. I knew I had to stop Deimos, but that I had to return to you. I had to make sure you survived. To wake up in Athens -- in some jail cell, far, far away from Pylos… It wasn’t the plan.”

“Nothing at Pylos went according to plan,” he says, and she senses his grip tightening around the bandage on his leg. She wonders if it still hurts. It’s been so long, but some wounds never heal quite right. She wonders if the next time he faces a serious battle if it’ll be his undoing. 

“I spent so long mourning you, mourning what… well, what could have been.”

The thought catches his attention, and he turns to her. His knee brushes against hers and she feels a chill run up her spine. She shuts her eyes, trying to will the strength to keep going, and images of Pylos flood her mind again. She wonders if she’ll ever stop envisioning it. Maybe telling him will release her from the curse. Hesitating before hadn’t helped her. 

She goes to speak again, but she’s cut off. Brasidas closes the gaps between them and she finds that the feeling of him against her speaks more than her words could ever do. She slides her hands to his waist and tugs him closer, leaning back against the sand with his lips against hers. She’s imagined something like this since they first met in a burning warehouse in Korinthia, what it would feel like to have someone so natural to her feel these things for her romantically. 

She pulls away for a moment, attempting to catch her breath. Her fingers curl around the few short locks of hair at the back of his neck, and pulls him closer. He hums a few notes of appreciation against her lips before kissing her again, pressing her body into the sand, easing himself against her. She’s not at all shocked by how well they fit against one another. She’s grateful for the lack of armor between them, no clunking of metal and weapons, just the two of them with little cloth between them. 

Kassandra pulls her lips away for a moment, pressing her forehead against his. He doesn’t press and push her for more, just cups her cheek and waits for her words. 

She opens her eyes, and lures him closer. She holds his hand against her cheek, kissing the side of his palm. 

“I love you,” she whispers. She thinks it’s perhaps the craziest thing she’s ever said. She wonders how many people she’s ever said it to. She’s sure to her mother and father as a girl, to baby Alexios when he was born, maybe to Phoibe. But when she thinks of Brasidas, she thinks of home, of a future, of something that exists beyond stopping the Cult. She thinks of family dinners, of having someone to rest her head against in bed each night, someone to take care of her for once. Someone she can care for in just the same way. She thinks of words like partner and husband, and things that feel like they last. 

He pauses a moment, his eyes filled with warmth and perhaps some surprise. He presses a kiss to the side of her palm as well, and then to her forehead. 

“I love you too. Until there is nothing left of me, I’ll be lucky to love the most amazing woman to walk the Earth.”

She gives a smile, and hopes he can’t see her eyes watering against the moonlight. She wants to keep saying it again and again, because it’s true, and she’s had enough lying in her life, enough betrayal and bullshit and people who only wish to hurt that she thinks it can’t do any harm to say things like this that are true. That she loves him, and he loves her in return.

She kisses him again, and again, and he presses against her harder. Their muscles push together, and she finds him breathing in as she breathes out, moving together in unison -- as they always have. His hand brushes up the bottom of her  _ chiton  _ and she allows him to continue. She wonders what it’d be like to have all of him, to understand his body in more intimate ways than before. She imagines how good it would feel to let him take her on the beach with the sound of waves gently lapping against the shore, knowing maybe somewhere nearby, someone might hear them. She’s waited so long since Pylos, so sure that someone could fill the hole in her heart that he left behind. But now, there’s no need for a substitute. So she lets him.

Hands wander under fabric, and she pushes her garments down just enough to allow him closer. Her heart races against his, and as he closes the spaces between them, she guides her lips back to his to muffle any sounds she so desperately wants to make. Her hands wander to his waist, guiding him against her body. She takes her lips off of his to gasp his name as he eases into her harder, it comes out somewhere between a cry and moan and brings a subtle smile to his lips to hear someone so intense, so fierce brought to such a vulnerable state. As she reaches an edge, she struggles to find words. Not a name, not a gasp or a teased out or desperate plea for release, but when he grabs her hand and holds it against his heart, she can’t help but feel complete. 

Her skin feels damp and tingly with sweat and euphoria, and she struggles to find her breath still. 

“I shouldn’t have waited. I should have jumped on the chance in that warehouse in Korinthia. If I had known...”

He lets out a soft laugh, leaning himself against her side. “It was on fire.”

She cups his cheek, and thinks of how grateful she is for another chance. Now, when she closes her eyes, she doesn’t seem him dying, waiting for the end to come on scorched ground among a sea of fallen soldiers. She sees him like this. Out of uniform, slightly glistening with sweat, human. She sees him as someone who has her heart completely. 

“Tomorrow won’t be easy,” he says. “But I don’t intend to waste any time. Not anymore.”

Kassandra nods, and rests her head against his chest. His breathing is still heavy and strained, but he’s warm and comfortable, and she’s never had someone to sleep beside who made her feel so loved. 

“Rest up,” she says, kissing his forehead. “There will be much to celebrate when we win tomorrow.”


End file.
